Four of a Kind
by Nautica7mk
Summary: Some drinking, a visit from an old friend and a deck of cards… what more do you need?


**Title**: Four of a Kind  
**Author**: Nadia Mack  
**Rated**: PG  
**Disclaimer**: I Own Nothing.  
**Summary**: One-Shot. Some drinking, a visit from an old friend and a deck of cards… what more do you need?  
**Author's Notes**: Another one-shot I wrote a while back ago. Enjoy.

_"Last night I was playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died." – Steven Wright_

It had been whirlwind week; everyone is off busily doing something as they prepared for spring break. Clark spent the last couple of evenings in his loft doing absolutely nothing. Chloe was doing her journalistic thing. Lois was doing whatever it is that she does in her spare time thing. His parents were off in Metropolis for his dad's tri-monthly checkup and Lana is going through another dramatic situation. He was beginning to think normalcy was overrated.

The sound of his cell phone ringing takes him out of his broody thoughts.

"Hello"

"Clark, it's Chloe," she answered on the other line.

"Chloe, hey!" he replied, happy to finally get to talk to someone. "What's up?" he hoped she had something to do that didn't involve sleuthing of some kind. The last thing he wanted to do was solve another meteorite mystery, he's had enough of that with the stones.

"I have plans for us tonight," she answered vaguely.

"Yeah, Smallville, get your ass over here," another voice interrupted, taking Clark completely by surprise.

"Who is this?" he says through his phone, pacing around his loft like a hitchhiker stuck at a fork in the road.

"You've forgotten all about me already, Smallville," the woman on the line commented sarcastically, she didn't sound like she was even a bit offended. "I think I feel a tear coming on," he heard her finish.

Clark rolled his eyes upon realizing who it was. This would be the first time he had been attacked by three-way calling.

"Lo-is" he uttered syllabically.

"Ha! You remember!" she teased.

"Oh, shut it you two," Chloe burst in, silencing their competitive repartee. "One of these days, I'm going to throw you both in a room with a shrink," she threatened.

"You **wouldn't**?" Clark responded appalled.

"That's abusing your relative powers, Chlo," added Lois with equal firmness.

"Lois… be nice!" she says, playing referee.

"Yeah!" Clark agreed.

"Quiet!" both cousins's responded, and Clark immediately did. Lois or Chloe was one thing, but both of them together, he knew already he had lost.

"So, Clark. Seven o'clock, tonight. Be there." Then she hung up.

Clark stared at his cell phone completely confused at what just happened. He committed the plans to memory and decided to just go with it. It wasn't like he had anything else planned for the night.

Its six thirty and Clark haven't heard from either cousin's all day. He followed the directions Chloe had e-mailed to him after they hung up earlier. When he reached his destination, a motel outside of Smallville, he felt a momentary confusion. Why here?

As he neared his destination, he heard laughter growing louder. Just as he was about to knock, he saw the door was already opened.

Clark looked on with a thunderbolt of astonishment as he greeted three pairs of familiar eyes: The effervescent Lois Lane, his good friend Chloe Sullivan and… his very best friend since childhood Pete Ross all seated around a square table.

"Pete!" he exclaimed, the two friends hugged. 

"What are you doing here?" Clark continued aloud.

The last time they saw each other, he had left Smallville for Wichita, so Clark was more than a little surprised to see him back and in the company of old and new friends.

Pete smiled at him. "I thought I'd come by for a visit, but as soon as I saw Chloe and her very fine looking cousin playing a game of poker, I just **had** to be distracted," he explained and greeted him lightly in return.

Clark laughed and joined the three of them at the table. The sight of Chloe playfully slapping Pete's shoulder when he commented on her cousin was fun to see, and Lois looking anything but embarrassed about it had Clark thinking twice about her.

For the past year, Clark had never really stopped and thought about Lois in that way. She came into his life during a tumultuous time and it left little room for contemplation, and their attitudes toward each other didn't exactly pave the way for anything remotely romantic. At least, he didn't think so.

He turned his thoughts away from Lois and looked at the deck of cards Pete held in his hands. "What's going on now?" Clark meekly asked, never really been much for a card player while still recovering from the shock of seeing his best friend in the flesh.

"Hold your horses, Smallville," Lois effortlessly commanded. It annoyed Clark that she did that, but he was more annoyed with himself for succumbing to her demand. She held her hand out for the cards and Pete was more than happy to relinquish his hold on it.

"Thanks, Petey from Wichita," she dubbed him.

Clark grinned. Chloe laughed. Pete just sat a little perplexed at the nickname Lois provided out of the blue.

"Get used to it," Clark comforted, giving his friend a sympathetic glance.

"So what are we playing?" Chloe asked, excited to spend the evening with her closest and dearest friends. Shortly after she moved to Smallville, she always wished the four of them would get together and hang out, and she was thrilled that it has finally happened. She would've invited Lana, but she was just too full of drama nowadays, she didn't want that kind of complication around.

"Five-Card Draw," Lois easily answered.

Pete and Chloe nodded in understanding while Clark was left swimming in obscurity. Lois noticed it first.

"What's wrong Smallville?"

Clark sighs, having given up long ago that Lois would rarely use his real name. "What's a Five-Card Draw?"

"Regular poker," Pete contributed.

Clark still looked bewildered, he should've paid attention to _Rounders_ a lot more when he and Pete watched it several years ago.

Lois rolls her eyes. "I take it your not a card player," she stated. Clark cast his eyes downward, nodding his head in a bit of embarrassment.

"I play Go Fish with my mom sometimes," he confessed and then mentally slapped himself for revealing something so childish.

Pete let out a chuckle but quickly stopped it when he felt Chloe's shoes colliding with his shins.

Lois smiled thoughtfully, thinking it was sweet. To be honest, she played Go Fish with his mom sometimes too. She then sat up a little straighter and prepared herself to explain. "All right, Smallville… pay attention. Poker… it's played with a standard deck of 52 cards." She held up the deck to show him, and he nods. "It's ranked from high to low in order of Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, so on and so forth… still following?" Clark nods again.

"The cards are also separated into four suits," Chloe chimed in, hoping to help relieve his awkwardness.

"Clubs, Spades, Hearts and Diamonds," Pete came in to complete the explanation, holding up one suit after another to indicate the difference.

Clark looks on wide-eyed. "That's a lot to remember," he comments.

"Wait till we get to the actual game," Lois quipped playfully but saw Clark's face falter when she did. "Hey, come on, don't go all pitiful on us now, it's like riding a bike, once you get going, it becomes pretty natural," she unexpectedly encouraged.

Clark smiled gratefully despite their rocky but charismatic relationship, and immediately found himself a little more at ease.

"Okay, then what?" he asked with a little more commitment towards the game.

"That's my boy," Lois announced, garnering interesting looks between Chloe and Pete whereas Clark was completely oblivious to the affection he and Lois were always sharing with each other.

"Each player is dealt five cards," Lois described oblivious to their looks as well, giving one card to each person clockwise five times. "The intent of the game is to end up with the highest-value hand"

"And what's that?" Clark's interest was finally piqued.

Chloe was suddenly so excited, because she jumped in and answered. "From best to worst… Royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, a flush, a straight… umm…" she start spouting out by memory. "… three of a kind, two pair, one pair and a high card."

"You freak me out some times, you know that little cousin," Lois commented with a mixture of awe and awkwardness.

"Looks who's talking," Chloe returned. "Might I remind you that it was **you** who taught me everything I know"

"Yeah, sure… blame me now"

"Ladies… ladies… please…" Pete interrupted. "You're **both** pretty!" he exclaimed.

They all laugh in unison.

When the laughter died down, Lois reshuffled the deck with a professional's hand and redistributed it like a pro. "Are we ready for a trial run?" she asked, her question directed more towards Clark than the rest of the group.

"Only one way to find out," he replied, a lot more enthusiastic than he was half an hour ago.

Three hours, several bottles of beer and card games later, Lois, Clark, Chloe and Pete was laughing hysterically at a story Lois was sharing when she lived abroad. Clark had quickly learned his way around the game that every game afterwards had easily become a game of the wits between the four friends, and fun stories told in between.

"You **did** not do that!" Clark refused to believe her story as the four of them just laughed.

Lois held her hands up high. "I **swear** that's what happened," she wholeheartedly defends. She grabbed a handful of popcorn and threw them at her cousin for not siding with her.

"Your **dad** is sooooo gonna put you under house arrest if he ever finds out," Chloe mused, the amount of alcohol she consumed and her cousin's lively stories mixed with it made for some powerful stuff.

Lois grabbed her bottle and chugged it down. "Too late," she muttered, then laughing it off.

"What?" Pete looked on amazed. "Your dad found out!" he added in disbelief. "Oh man, that can't be good"

Lois shook her head, agreeing. "Yup!" She shifted her seat to the side and lifted her feet to rest atop of Clark's lap. He didn't even notice and even moved to accommodate her.

"Oooh… you were so grounded," Chloe teased.

"He only thinks he grounded me," Lois winked, holding up her bottle and toasted it with Pete

"Do tell…" Clark encouraged, the past hour had him flirting with her openly much to the surprise of Pete, while Chloe looked on discreetly intrigued.

"Wouldn't you like to know," she returned with equal playfulness.

"Well… we're waiting," Clark replied impatiently.

"Nice try, farmboy, but it'll take more than a few drinks to get me spilling." She raised her fist in the air. "Girl power!" she exclaimed fruitfully, reaching across the table toasting her bottle with that of her cousins.

Chloe shook her head, laughing and smiling. This was the sort of thing she missed whenever her older cousin was away. Lois had always made her feel safe, loved and cared for, and more importantly, she made her feel a part of something instead of feeling like she was some sort of burden, or a little sister that just wanted to tag along. Lois is the big sister she always wanted, but knew she was regardless of the cousin connection they shared.

An hour later…

"WOOHOO!" Chloe screamed, dropping her set of cards on the table revealing a Royal Flush. Hearts of 10, Jack, Queen, King and an Ace. There was a collective sigh when everyone dropped their cards down disappointingly.

Chloe stood up, the victor, and performed a dorky rendition of 'Carlton's Dance' from the long running popular old school sitcom, _The Fresh Prince of Bell Air_.

Pete was already so far gone in drunken land; he jumped up and joined her.

"Go Chloe! Go Chloe! It's ya BIRTHDAY!" he sang consecutively, moving ridiculously to the groove along with a clearly drunken Chloe Sullivan.

Although, Clark wasn't drunk, he was enjoying the time they were spending together and just went into fits of laughter with no end in sight.

"What… Happened… To her?" he asked, laughing in between words. He looked at Lois who held an amused look on her face. "What?" he wondered, quelling his laughter.

"Don't," she replied in a rather soft tone, completely uncharacteristic of Lois Lane. "It's nice to hear you laugh," she added, surprising him even more.

"What are you talking about?" he quietly asked her. "You've seen me laugh before," he reminded her, surprised not only by her comment, but by the fact that no matter how many bottles she drank, she doesn't seem to be as drunk as their other two companions.

She shook her head knowingly. "Not like this, I haven't." There wasn't a hint of teasing in her voice.

It left Clark uncomfortable, and not in a bad way.

He looked at her, and she silently looked at him in return. They remained that way long enough for Chloe and Pete to notice, and even in their highly intoxicated enhanced state, they stopped what they were doing and sat open-eyed waiting for one of them to make a move. Chloe even got herself a bowl of popcorn to share with 'Pete from Wichita' so they can watch the two like it was some kind of real life stage show.

"Come on, Clark… lean forward!" Chloe exclaimed loudly like a fan watching a romantic comedy in a theatre.

Lois and Clark broke out of their staring match and saw that Chloe and Pete were watching them with immense interest.

"I think you two have had enough," she observed, acting as the designated drinker that she wasn't.

Clark held a silent chuckle to himself at what just happened or hadn't, occurred between them.

"Oh man, no!" Pete complained.

"Yeah, it was just getting gooood…" Chloe complained as well. She is truly out of it, but it didn't matter, it was better than the sports drink they had earlier in the school year. Now that was just lunacy in the highest.

"Come on, little cousin. Time to come back from wonderland," she insisted, but made no move to prevent her. Lois has had many experiences with drinking and the after affects of it that she knew she'll have to wait it out for both Pete and Chloe to get tired and fall into dreamland.

Forty-five minutes later, Chloe and Pete were finally too exhausted to move and just fell asleep all over the floor. Lois though, just started picking up all the empty beer bottles scattered throughout the room, carefully stepping over and moving about the sleeping bodies.

Clark on the other hand was looking at her through another beer bottle he drowned down like water, unaffected by its influence but it did allow him to see Lois in a new light. Throughout the evening, she displayed herself as the epitome of class. It seemed that when in the company of her cousin Chloe, she becomes an almost entirely different person. There were no remarks where remarks were normally expected.

"You gonna sit there like a display case or are you gonna get up and help me here?"

Clark smiled, not the remark he was expecting but it was close enough.

"You were different tonight," he found himself revealing to her. She really was: fun, energetic and patient. The first two was no surprise but the last one certainly was.

"Don't look into too deeply, Smallville. Things will get back to normal by noon tomorrow… or is that today now?" she chuckled lightly; it was almost beginning to sound like music to his ears. That or he really was going drunk.

"It doesn't have to," he says, taking even himself by surprise.

Lois looked up from what she was doing and glanced at Clark oddly, and in the process, nearly tripped on Chloe's leg.

She cursed to herself, it had hurt.

"Arrrrghhh…" Lois heard her sleeping cousin growl.

"I don't think I've ever seen Chloe like this," she commented amusingly as she nudged her sleeping cousin with her foot, getting nothing but a 'just five more minute's dad' in return.

Clark smiled back and forth between Chloe and Pete. "Neither have I. At least not in such a controlled environment"

"Is that so?" she asks with deep interest. "You're going to have to share that story with me some time"

"Only if you behave," he returned, teasing.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you," she stated, not really saying it as a question but expressing it playfully nonetheless.

"It was a meteor rock thing," he finally revealed.

She waved a hand out. "Hmm… no need to say more," she quickly understood. Anything that involved the meteor rocks always brings upon the unexplained. She picked up a Polaroid camera Chloe had brought along and grabbed the last photo from its exit feeder. She smiled at the sentimentality of it before shoving inside a shirt pocket hung on a nearby chair.

Many hours went by and the two overly drunk underage teens finally awakened with a terrible hangover.

"Uhhhhh…" Chloe murmured.

"What… was… in… those… drinks?" Pete asks lazily picking himself off the floor.

"I think the question you should be asking yourself is… how many did you drink?" A wide awake Lois Lane commented from the front door, holding up a bag of what he assumed must be post-hangover ingredients.

"Uhhhhh…" Chloe continued on, she couldn't make herself move.

Lois set the bags on the table and moved to Chloe's prone position on the floor, kneeling down and placing the back of her hand on her forehead to check her temperature. It was the norm for her.

"Come on, baby, wake up. You'll oversleep," she whispered soothingly.

"I don't want to," Chloe replied childishly. Lois could only nod, holding her laughter in. Sure she felt bad for her cousins' current state, but it was still funny.

"Where's Clark?" asks Pete when he found his brain still in his head.

"He's outside, he woke up really early this morning," Lois answered him, her attention still focused on her drowsy cousin.

"I think I'll join him"

Outside, Clark sat serenely atop a picnic table looking out into the already falling sky. He had spent the morning and most of the afternoon with Lois just talking as Pete and Chloe slept throughout the day. They had both let their guards completely down.

It felt… he wasn't sure what it felt exactly. It wasn't just any one thing. It was a whole bunch of confusing feelings put together, like he could absolutely tell her everything. There were even some moments where he almost did.

"Hey buddy, you missed all the fun this morning," Pete called out groggily as he approached him.

Clark arched an amused eyebrow. "It's the end of the afternoon, Pete," he corrected.

Pete took in a deeper breath and looked around. "Ah look at that," he says seeing the night sky descend upon them. "You're right."

Clark laughed. "It's really good to see you"

Pete flinched a bit, covering his ears. "Right back at you, my friend." Shaking his head, "Sorry, you're kind of loud"

Clark laughed again. "Drinking doesn't seem to be your friend either," he surmised.

"If that was the case, I wouldn't be drinking"

"Fair enough," he smiled genuinely.

"How's it going with you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well… you and Chloe's cousin look close," he replied knowingly. Despite his drunken stupor, he recalled some things that happened last night that he took upon himself to put a mental thumb tack on.

"Nah, we can't stand each other," he lied, and Pete saw through that. He was still the only one besides his parents that he entrusted his secret with. He rephrased. "She's all right"

"All right?" Pete repeated sourly, he may have been drunk but he wasn't blind. "All right? Dude, have you seen her? She's hot!"

Clark smiled at that. Lois is beautiful, he had to admit.

"And is it true that she's living with you?"

Clark nodded, getting a huge gasp of surprise from his best friend.

"No way!" his jaw opens.

"It isn't that bad"

"I bet"

"Nothing's going on"

"Sure didn't seem like it," Pete argued.

"You were drunk," Clark replied, then opened his eyes even wider. "You still ARE!" he added, slightly more amused with him.

Pete shrugged. "So?"

Clark simply shook his head, smiling. It was great seeing his friends in one place and without the burden of real life dramas getting in the way.

"Okay, so I have to ask… and you have to reply immediately on this one, buddy." Clark cautiously nods. "You ready?"

"O…kay," says Clark.

"Can I ask Lois out?"

"No." Clark did as he was asked and immediately answered, but when he realized what he just said, it was too late to take it back. He looks at Pete who sat laughing.

"I so CALLED you on it!"

"Uh huh, I still have a right to 'no comment'"

"Come on, buddy. Let's get Chloe up and out of bed so we can have a late breakfast. I'm starving"

This is what he wished it would always be, even though Pete had just met Lois, having her apart of his life and in this group of friends felt right, like this is what is meant to be. He got up from his sitting position and dusted himself off to head back and noticed he had something in his buttoned up plaid shirt pocket. A photo Chloe had some passerby take the night before.

It was the four of them, standing next to each other with big smiles and nothing like they had any burdens.

It was just the four of them.

Four of a kind

**The End**


End file.
